Below is the second in a series of posts that Croakey is running on the ground-breaking Choosing Wisely campaign, which will launch in Australia on 29 April. The campaign focuses on cutting down the numbers of unnecessary medical tests and treatment and has been successful in the USA and Canada in reducing non-evidenced based interventions. [...]

NSW voters are expected to return Mike Baird’s Coalition Government this weekend (see reports at The Conversation and The Guardian), but the results in the Upper House are less certain, as former MP Rob Oakeshott pointed out at Croakey earlier this week. What are the health issues and concerns at play? Croakey contributors give their [...]

“While we have a good health system, it is not good for all, and it can be made better.” By Dr Linc Thurecht and Alison Verhoeven, Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association As a contribution to the Reform of the Federation process, on 16 March 2015 the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (AHHA) brought together over [...]

Andrew Wilson writes: What happens when you bring a state health minister face-to-face with her two main challengers, fronting a roomful of health experts, without any TV cameras or dictaphones to leap on any “gaffes” or stumbles? What you can get is a genuinely informative debate, largely free of three-second soundbites. I saw this late [...]

The British Medical Journal today published the findings of a series of studies in a special Tobacco Control supplement showing that Australia’s plain packaging laws are delivering on their promise. Cancer Council Victoria’s Professor Melanie Wakefield, whose team led the evaluation, said research shows plain packaging reduced positive perceptions of cigarette packs among teenagers and [...]

While the media has been focussed on the Government’s proposed GP co-payment, there have been potentially bigger changes to primary health care progressing behind the scenes. The transition from Medicare Locals to Primary Health Networks (PHNs) may not appear significant, as the functions and objectives of both organisations are very similar. However, there are some [...]

With thanks to The Conversation for allowing us to cross publish this piece by Lesley Russell. By Lesley Russell, University of Sydney The impact of specialist fees on government and patient budgets has received little reform attention. This is despite the government’s push for controls in health-care spending and growing evidence of the affordability problems faced [...]

The Federation Reform consultation process is now underway. Readers may remember that the health issues paper was release in December last year and the process has been seen by groups such as AHHA as a possibility to improve healthcare. At the time a senior health policy analyst and regular Croakey contributor, writing under the pen [...]

By Kellie Bisset On Closing the Gap This fortnight, we learned that Australia’s progress in closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage was, in the words of the Prime Minister, “profoundly disappointing”. The release of the Closing the Gap report, which showed targets on life expectancy, early childhood access, reading and numeracy and employment have remained [...]

It’s hard to pick where health policy will go now under the Federal Government, with a new Minister and the likely shift (mark 3?) on a GP co-payment – if not because they accept the evidence against it but because of the politics. But there was an interesting intervention in the lead up to this [...]

About this blog

The Croakey blog is a forum for debate and discussion about health issues and policy. It is moderated by Melissa Sweet, a freelance journalist with a personal and professional bent towards public health perspectives. Regular contributors include members of the Crikey Health and Medical Panel.